EDITOR ’ S COMMENT
HOW CAN SD- WAN SECURE ENTERPRISE IOT DEVICES TO MITIGATE NETWORK-WIDE CYBERATTACKS ?
JACOB CHACKO , REGIONAL DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST , SAUDI AND SOUTH AFRICA , ARUBA
When applied correctly , IoT devices can help automate business operations , drive significant operational efficiencies , and deliver real-time intelligence that makes organisations more agile . But as enterprises continue to deploy more and more connected devices , it ’ s critical to manage the unique security challenges associated with them . Jacob Chacko , Regional Director , Middle East , Saudi and South Africa at Aruba , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company , tells us here how SD-WAN can help secure enterprise IoT devices to mitigate network-wide cyberattacks .
The proliferation of IoT devices across enterprises brings new ways to monitor , automate and optimise business processes – from intelligent manufacturing lines to automated lighting in smart offices for energy savings . However , while IoT makes businesses more efficient through automation , it also increases the attack surface by adding a new dimension of security complexity .
Examples of enterprise IoT devices can include point of sale ( PoS ) credit card processing terminals , heating , ventilation , air-conditioning ( HVAC ) control systems , surveillance cameras , flow sensors and more . These network-connected devices communicate over the internet either to a control centre running in a public cloud environment such as AWS , Azure , Google Cloud , or a corporate data centre where the large data sets are recorded and analysed . Because these enterprise IoT devices connect over the Internet , they can introduce new threats and have become attractive targets for opportunistic cybercriminals . Why ? Due to its connected nature , if a cyberattack on an IoT device is successful , it provides a backdoor into an organisation ’ s entire network .
Zero trust network access
The acceleration of Digital Transformation over the last 15 months has only served to intensify the problem , which has prompted technology leaders to assess the full spectrum of devices across their organisations . One way IT teams are tackling the growing mobile device security challenge is to deploy a zero-trust network access ( ZTNA ) solution based on the Zero Trust model . A ZTNA solution works by installing an endpoint agent on a user device such as a laptop , tablet or mobile phone , which ensures traffic from the device is directed to a cloud-delivered security service before being directed towards a SaaS application or IaaS provider .
So far so good , however , unlike mobile user devices , ZTNA solutions won ’ t work on the majority of IoT devices since they are agentless and therefore don ’ t support the installation of third-party software agents . Because of this , enterprises require a different security solution for IoT devices . Enter SD-WAN – a new approach to securing enterprise IoT devices .
Advanced SD-WAN edge platform
With an advanced , business-driven SD-WAN edge platform , enterprises can mitigate the risk of exposure to breaches associated with IoT devices without the need to install ZTNA agents . Instead , the platform is able to identify and classify IoT device traffic on the first data packet , and segment it at the network edge to an appropriate zone where it can be isolated from all other network traffic . This endto-end segmentation spans the enterprise and enforces consistent and automated security policies with granular visibility .
Segment and isolate
The ability to isolate segments of IoT device traffic is one of the key benefits of the end-to-end segmentation that is made possible through an advanced SD-WAN platform . An independent security policy can be configured and applied to each segment which instructs
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